A Winter's Night

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  Talk was finished, the decision made. They’d do nothing.

  That nonevent became legendary: for years in town everyone spoke of a fabulous inheritance that had been tossed to the winds due to the Brunis’ stubborn simplemindedness. No one would ever learn how much it amounted to.

  There was never any doubt that it had truly existed, because precisely one year later, another letter arrived from the notary in Genova to inform them that, since no one had appeared to claim the inheritance, it had been turned over to the state’s coffers. Armando said that this Mr. Coffer was a very fortunate guy and that they had been idiots, but it was too late to do anything about it. Floti said nothing, because just thinking about it made his blood boil.

  It wasn’t long at all before life picked up again as if nothing had ever happened.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Checco married a young woman from town called Esterina. Intelligent, affectionate and uncomplicated, she immediately entered into Clerice’s good graces. They had a happy marriage because they were well suited to each other and happy with what they had. Checco didn’t want to be a farmer his whole life, and decided to learn a trade that would allow him to make ends meet, while his wife tended to things at home without wearing herself out too much. And that would leave him a bit of time to spend with his cronies in town. He knew he’d have to be careful about having children, because once they moved into a rented house, there wouldn’t be much room. Destiny gave him a hand here because once his wife had had their first son, she never remained pregnant again.

  They called the boy Vasco, a name they’d heard in the pirate stories that Fonso told at night in the stable. The war and the battle of Bligny were much more distant in Checco’s memory than they were on the calendar, although he never quite forgot Pipetta belting out his song so he could be heard over the cannon fire and calling him “milord” as he merrily turned his cart in the direction of the steel monsters in a headlong race to meet his fate, like Amphiaraus in Seven Against Thebes, another of Fonso’s tales.

  Floti had also begun seeing a girl, seriously and with the most honorable intentions. But once again, as in many other ways, his behavior set him apart from all his brothers: he was the only one to break with the age-old adage that it was better to stick to your kith and kin when seeking a bride. She hailed from a nearby town on the Samoggia. Better to mix up your cards than stay local, Floti declared. Her name was Mafalda and she was lovely without being showy, the kind of beauty that lets itself be discovered and appreciated a little at a time. Only her eyes shone outright: they were black as coal, shadowed by long lashes, quick and intriguing. They spoke much more openly than her mouth did, which she often kept closed, especially when she found herself in talky company.

  This was a quality of hers that Floti liked instantly; he read it as a sign of her intelligence. When he finally saw her unveiled, the first night of their marriage, her shape softly revealed in the light of a candle that she had distractedly forgotten to blow out, he reveled in her sensual perfection. Her breasts were firm and round like those of the bronze sirens in Bologna’s main square. She had stepped out of her clothing, like a butterfly from a chrysalis, and the shapeless gray folds of the material contrasted with the sinuous curves of her body.

  Floti, who had been brought up to be proper, was still in his underwear at this point, but encouraged by the sudden and unexpected immodesty of his bride, stripped to the buff as well. Holding her close in bed later, he said: “Why were you always hiding in such big, shapeless dresses? I could never have imagined that you were so beautiful.”

  “Why would I want to be admired by men I’m not interested in? So I could go to the trouble of spurning them? I was waiting for this moment, to show myself only to you.”

  So this was the kind of love, the kind of lover, that rich, powerful men could seek and hold for themselves! Floti felt that a kind of miracle had happened to him. He resolved to love her wholly, fully, deeply, and to stay beside her his whole life. He realized that he wanted that body, those eyes and that smile all for himself; he would not let her be disfigured by an endless series of pregnancies, nor worn out by toil, nor burned by the sun and the frost. He would cherish her and defend her like wheat ready to be harvested, like a cluster of ripe grapes.

  But even this fact, of having a beautiful wife who remained that way, ended up sowing envy, among both his brothers and their own wives. Floti ran his life well and lived well. He didn’t dirty his hands in the stable, nor did he soil his shoes with mud or dust. When he left the house he always wore a clean, pressed shirt and jacket, cotton trousers in the summer and wool ones in the winter. Practically no one remembered that he’d returned from the war with shrapnel in his lung and that the doctors had admonished him not to do heavy or tiring labor. Despite this, the well-being of the family had always depended largely on him. He sold their cheese at the best price, paying attention to the trends of the market, his hay was untouched by mold, his fruit blemish-free, his wine without a flaw. He managed this by choosing the right men for each job. All in all, he never put on airs, he treated everyone with respect and when he’d made a good deal he always remembered to bring home some prettily patterned material for his sisters-in-law and some toys for the children.

  Life continued as usual that whole winter on the farm, and the big snows didn’t fail to bring the usual guests to Hotel Bruni. Wanderers and wayfarers, even several pilgrims on their way to Rome to pray at the tomb of Saint Peter. The house was always open to anyone suffering from hunger, cold or solitude, as it had been for time immemorial.

  Fonso told his stories and one peaceful night slipped into the next as everyone listened. He and Maria were engaged by now, in secret, because Floti was against it. The Brunis were enjoying, it might be said, a moment of grace. They had absorbed the terrible blow of Gaetano’s death, which mostly Clerice had borne the brunt of, and were going about the quiet business of forming their own families.

  Despite appearances, Floti was no dandy. He was a farming man, dedicated to improving the conditions of his extended family and his own stock. The first child born to him and Mafalda was a boy, whom they called Corrado, and then a girl he decided to call Ines, a Spanish-sounding name that had an exotic touch and an aristocratic one at the same time.

  That was, perhaps, the best moment in the history of the Bruni family, but it didn’t last long. Shortly after the birth of little Ines, Floti suffered a terrible blow: he lost his wife. Perhaps the pregnancy had weakened her, or an infection had struck; one day Mafalda fell sick and a week later she was gone. Floti never left her side for a minute and held her hand until the very last moment, hoping and trusting that she would pull through. He hung onto her every word, as if saving them up for a time when he wouldn’t be able to listen to her voice ever again.

  It was unusual for men of his type to be so tender with their wives. It smacked somehow of a lack of virility, but Floti was gentle and solicitous, caring for her and serving her like a princess. He even brought her fresh oranges, which cost a fortune.

  “Do you think we’ll see each other in heaven?” she asked him in her last moments.

  Floti couldn’t lie to her at such a terrible moment. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Maybe I should say yes, I believe we’ll see each other, if that’s what you’re hoping and what will make you happy. To me it makes no difference. I’ve already known heaven: the moments I’ve spent with you in this room have been the most beautiful of my life and I’ll never know anything like this again. I’ll keep thinking of you, for all the rest of my days, and even if we do see each other again, I can’t believe that we could ever take more delight from our love than we have right here in this bed, or that we’ll ever be able to look at each other with such desire.”

  At these words her eyes welled up with tears and when she felt that her time had come she squeezed his hand with all the strength left to her and said: “Take care of our children. Give
me a kiss, and then go, because I have to die now.”

  Floti gave her a kiss, walked down the stairs and said to Maria: “Go upstairs and take care of her body, please. Dress her in her most beautiful gown. I can’t.”

  Other people died that winter, in town, of starvation, of the cold and of tuberculosis, and the big church bell tolled often, filling the streets with its death knell. Clerice was called to many a death bed, to recite the rosary after the person had passed. Maria would go with her, and when the struggle was a long one and lasted through the night, she would shiver as she heard the hooting of an owl, a syncopated moan which sounded to her like a hiccup.

  “It’s really true that owls bring misfortune!” she told her mother.

  “Misfortune happens even without owls, daughter,” her mother whispered in her ear, but she wasn’t convinced. From then on, whenever Maria found an owl nest while she was picking elm leaves for the animals or gathering cherries, she would destroy it. If there were nestlings inside, she would kill them, so less misfortune might befall the town.

  When the winter lightened its grip and the townsfolk had wept over their dead for long enough, work in the fields began again. Many families were starting to earn a bit of money, and could afford to buy food, but quite a few children would still be sent out to beg for alms early in the morning before school.

  Change was in the air, and soon the people who owned the land and those who worked it were at loggerheads. Hard negotiating by the unions had procured better conditions for tenant farmers, who were now able to keep sixty percent of the harvest for themselves, and turn over only forty percent to the proprietor. The land owners had all united to depict the socialists who were fighting for workers’ rights as revolutionary subversives, like the Bolsheviks in Russia who had overturned the czar and slaughtered his whole family.

  In order to achieve their goals, these land-owners’ coalitions had for years been financing and supporting the Combat Leagues led by Benito Mussolini. His so-called ‘action squads’ beat, intimidated and terrorized anyone who dared to sympathize with the laborers and farmers.

  Savino was practically the only one in the family to take interest in such things, and one day he asked his brother Floti what he thought of this Mussolini.

  “He’s a man who has dashed the legitimate hopes of a great number of people,” replied Floti, “He’s chosen to side with the people who can offer him power. At the start of his career, he was championing a work day of eight hours and a retirement age of fifty five. He was active in the socialist movement and wrote articles for “Avanti!,” the party newspaper. Now, not only has he become the head of the government, but he’s bent and determined to go it alone. It’s called a dictatorship when one man rules alone, and that can only end badly.”

  Savino listened eagerly, although Floti took too much for granted when he spoke to his brother. No one had ever talked to Savino about certain issues. Floti himself had slowly become convinced that he could not stand and watch while the rights of men who worked from morning till night were systematically trampled upon. The loss of his wife had pushed him even further into politics, in no small part because it took his mind off her. He decided to run for councilor in the local elections, even though Clerice had begged him not to, not to get mixed up in things, because only trouble could come of it.

  One spring morning Savino found himself walking along the drainage ditch that separated his property from his neighbor’s when he noticed a group of people assembling on a strip of unplowed land between two big cornfields. Two or three of them were farmhands who worked on the adjoining plots of land. They provided their labor free of charge, in exchange for food and a place to sleep. They weren’t on his land, so he stopped and looked on curiously, until one of them noticed him and beckoned him over. Savino recognized him and he recognized another man as well, a friend who had been in the war with him and had fought on the Piave, one of the “Boys of ‘99” as they were called. Savino jumped over the ditch to join them: a gesture he would long remember as the moment he took sides.

  The friend was named Antonello, but everyone called him Nello. He’d proved to be a great soldier in the war, as brave as a lion. The man who had motioned him over was from Magazzino, a little town just about a kilometer away; his name was Graziano Montesi and he was a blacksmith. He had a high, wide brow and fine black hair that he slicked straight back with a hand of brill cream. He wore a fustian suit, a hazelnut colored cotton shirt and a grey tie. Not fancy clothing by any means, but it gave him an air of distinction and elegance, as if those assembled laborers deserved the same respect as the Senate of the Realm.

  “You’re a Bruni, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Right. My name’s Savino.”

  “You’re welcome here with us. Your brother Floti is running for councilor, isn’t he? Well, I’m here to advise all these men to vote for him because he’s a socialist like us. I hope you’ll vote for him too. We’re working men, and we should be respected. As citizens of this country, our rights should be recognized.”

  Savino had never even thought of himself living in a “country,” only in the town where he’d been born. This man was talking about the whole of Italy! The speech of this impromptu tribune went on for nearly an hour, and Savino didn’t miss a word of it. Montesi spoke in inspired tones of liberty, of rights, of equality. He spoke of the irremediable damage and loss caused by the war that had actually been turned to the advantage of big industrial groups and landowners, their bosses, who were now preventing laborers, workers and farmers from achieving more humane living conditions.

  “We don’t want to start a revolution,” he concluded, “we’ve already seen enough blood. All we want is to be treated like human beings, to have the value of our work and our toil recognized. We’re asking that our dignity as citizens be recognized. And we want a State that makes people who have more property and money pay taxes, so as to help people who have less. No gifts, no alms, which are only another way of humiliating us. Only what is legitimately ours.

  “It won’t be this government that gives us what we ask; they’re well on their way to becoming a dictatorship. They’re filling the city squares, and Parliament, with their empty, pretentious words, but we can see the truth here in the countryside, where we are suffering violence and humiliation. The king is doing nothing to defend free institutions. But we must not surrender, we will continue to fight, until we win.”

  The silence that followed seemed interminable, then everyone started expressing their opinions at once: some wanted to cut the throats of the landowners, because they were all bastards anyway, others felt that the key was abolishing private property, like in Russia. Everyone should be treated the same, receive in accordance with their needs. It was not right for a few to live in luxury and the rest to live in misery; the big estates should be confiscated and farming cooperatives instituted.

  As each man spoke his mind, and Montesi tried to respond as best he could, Savino and Nello walked off together, jumping the ditch back to the other side. “I think he spoke well,” said Savino.

  “Sure, nice words, but for pity’s sake, can’t you see that he’s just fueling hate? Weren’t you listening to the others? All mouthing off as if we were at the barber’s shop. No one even considering that if one guy is a farmer and another guy is a head of state there must be a reason for that. Who was Mussolini only three or four years ago? No one. And now who is he? The most important man in Italy, with grand projects for this country. Too many people run off at the mouth without any idea of what they’re saying.”

  “Well, maybe, but the fascists we know are arrogant bullies. They thrash anyone who doesn’t agree with them. They caught up with a trade-union rep in Sant’Agata and beat him to a pulp; when he came to, they made him drink half a bottle of castor oil in front of his wife and kids. He spent the whole night on the toilet. And this was a good guy, a father . . . if someone tries something like that
with me, I’ll go after him and kill him dead, so help me god. Castor oil? I’ll show them castor oil . . . ”

  “Calm down, Savino. Fine, they may be hot heads but what’s important is that they’re restoring law and order . . . ”

  “Whose order? Mussolini’s?”

  “Why, are you telling me that the Russians know what they’re doing?”

  Savino stopped and looked his friend in the eyes: “Are you a fascist, Nello?”

  “What if I were?”

  Savino fell silent for a while, thinking, then replied: “You’re right, a friend is a friend. We fought together in the war. Side by side. When any minute, any second, it was a matter of life or death. You’re more than a brother for me, but be careful, Nello, if you go down that road you don’t know where you’ll end up. They’re bad people. Bandits, blustering cowards, running wild.”

  “That’s not true! They’re patriots.”

  “We’re the patriots! We are the ones who pushed back the Austrians at the Piave. We could have given up, turned tail, run back home. We were only eighteen years old. Do you remember how many of our companions we saw fall?” Tears came to Savino’s eyes as he was speaking. “Just think of the Arditi, Nello, who vowed to protect the population after the war; they defended Parma against the fascists, saved her people from their violence and abuse. The Arditi, Nello! You and I saw them during the war, attacking with a dagger between their teeth, as many as three times in a single morning, remember? Balbo and his fascists didn’t have a chance against them. They were driven out of the city.

  “They’re the real patriots, because our country is not some fancy lady dressed up in green, white and red like you see in our schoolbooks; our country is us: the farmers who make bread for everyone, the workers who keep the factories going, and all the rest of us . . . why can’t they get that into their heads?”